The Truth about Freedom: A Book of Rediscovery by Angie Schubert

The Truth About Freedom by Angie Schubert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Think about truth, distortions, and the global and personal ways the “free” (monetized) internet, commercial, political and social media and increasingly “privatized” institutions and angry individuals reflect on our minds, bodies and actions. Schubert’s Truth about Freedom: A Book of Rediscovery is a first-person novella about a teen who’s lured and abducted through an online chat group by an abusive criminal troll, her escape from her horrific entrapment and her journey through some of her post-traumatic-stress symptoms into a kind family and some redemption.

Edited skillfully by one Nasús Aransu, this tells a “coming of age story” that’s just palatable and realistic enough to serve as a solid cautionary tale for young adults, and a reminder for everyone else that both evil and kindness still live; even in a wired, persistently dominator-modeled world.

If “the personal is the political,” The Truth echoes an emblematic legacy in our present reality as well. Although mostly available online right now, I recommend it, especially in light of cyber- and sexual bullying in our local high school (see last issue of The Berkeley Times' cover story re women, teachers, parents and feminist friends resisting harassment, demanding policy change and action) and beyond.

L'Ecole Polytechnique Massacre

It caused me some flashbacks, which almost all women who have gone past denial, self-blame, silence and guilt into truth have had and worked with in order to get to a relative Freedom.  

With a modestly “happy” ending in this volume, we still know many folks and fields on this planet are war-torn, enslaved financially, politically or physically; suffering, missing, raped or murdered.  

We will not go backwards. We will go forwards together. We have to keep telling these truths, making sure we all have knowledge, support and ways out.

Ft. McMurtry, Alberta, Canada

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